Cages
by Winter Ashby
Summary: Neji examines the new cage he's managed to twist his wounded soul into and the pink and green that haunt him at every turn. He wonders what she would taste like. [Neji & Sakura]


**Title: **Cages**  
Author: **Winter Ashby _(rosweldrmr)_**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto - I never will. This whole fandom belongs to Masashi Kishimoto-sama  
**Rating: **T**  
Summary: **Neji examines the new cage he's managed to twist his wounded soul into and the pink and green that haunt him at every turn. He wonders what she would taste like. (Neji & Sakura)**  
Authors Notes:**  
I has been brought to my attention that this is a little bit confusing. I'm sorry if it came out that way. If have any questions about this fic after you've read it, then please ASK ME. I will be more than willing to explain anything you want to know! I didn't really think it was that complicated, but then again, this is how my brain works. I'm all split and fragmented. Gomen!

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She hated his pale eyes. But she hated his cold skin and cold lips and cold words more. Because if she closed her eyes and tried hard enough, she could almost see the raven hair and crimson eyes that haunted her in her sleep and made her knees quake. So she looked straight ahead, unblinking, and drank in the sight of his coffee brown hair and off-white eyes. 

In the fall, he sits under a Sakura tree and thinks of her because he can't escape the pink or the green of the ground and the vermilion of her eyes as she watches him. And he wonders why she watches him and feels shameful because he enjoys her attention. But even worse is when he can feel her eyes on his skin of his torso as he lays bare for her to heal. She is powerful and yet, so vulnerable that the paradox she creates in him makes him wonder why he never noticed her before.

She hated him because she could, and somehow, it made the pain in her heart dwindle until it was almost just an ache that she could live with in the shadow of a man she would always remember. His skin is cold and the look in his eyes as she heals him is devastating. So she hated him then, as she did many times in the past and would continue to in the future because his words would haunt her, just like memories did and he would haunt her, just like so many others did.

He watches as she grows strong and secretly wonders what her gloved hands would feel like on the rarely exposed skin that lies just beyond his ritualistic bandages when she wasn't healing him. He is envious, and he hates her for eliciting such a worthless emotion in him. But she doesn't seem to notice as she pins him with a glare and orders him to stay still. Then she straddles him and breathes heavily while her green chakra flows into his broken body. He wonders what she would feel like on the inside.

He is haunted – by his clan, power, his quest for it, and it was just so damn familiar that everything faded away into the black night when tears stained her face and she begged someone to stay that she knew would never and could never love her. So she watches this man now, as he lies beneath her and knows that he is the embodiment of everything that she should love and hate wrapped up together. Because what she wants, what she's always wanted isn't there anymore. So she watches him and hates him, but she hates herself more.

And when he catches her looking, he gives her those cold, dead eyes and questions her. But she feigns innocence as if there is nothing to be accomplished by asking her why she watches him and cries now as her thighs overlap him. His eyes steel and he informs her of her inadequacies as his gaping wound has instead been unceremoniously reduced to a twisting scar.

She imagines what it would be like to take him into her room and let him touch her the way she's always wanted _him_ to. Because she can close her eyes and almost feel _his _lips dragging over the exposed skin of her quacking thighs. And he fills her senses with everything she should never want but always would. But she seems shocked to find the tear that slips past her eye and slashes across the wide expanse of his cold chest.

She heals him, and for one, shinning moment, he's sure that she can feel his heart beat skip under her warm hands. But then the content, wistful expression fades, and she pants as she empties her power into the useless vessel of his body just to avoid one more scar on his ninja body. He knows it pointless to wish, or to hold delicately to the tentative strings that seem to keep her attached to him. So he settles for laying under her in silence and watching as her breathing slowly returns to normal in the wake of the green glow from her immense power.

She watches him watch her and she can feel that familiar jolt of desire that courses through her veins as his cold eyes drag goose bumps down her arms. His hand moves and comes to rest comfortably on the gentle slop of her hip. Her eyes go wide and she sucks in cold air through gritted teeth. She watches the satisfied smirk that spread across his cold face and shivers as his fingers dig into her skin.

He can't stop his hand from moving, or the grin that mars his face as she takes a deep breath and refuses to let her eyes flutter for him. He finds her pride enticing and her power over him futile. His hand weighs heavy on her as he pulls her body down to cover the throbbing ache in his groin. He hates that he wants her, so he settles for watching her fight to maintain control and feels stated as her crotch comes to rest on his.

She hated her mini-skirt then, and Ino for her unrestrained enthusiasm when she first considered trading in her old, tattered training dress for something a little more… appealing. But her choice haunts her, just like his eyes do in the dead of night when she is so enticingly _exposed _for him, and empty without him. How long as she watched him? How long has she yarned for him? She can't remember, and even though she fights to keep her ragged breathing in check, she knows he can feel her begin to shake under his all-seeing eyes. She wonders when it stopped being about replacing _him_ but became this frenzied race for brown and off-white.

He wonders why her jade eyes look at him so, and roughly moves her heated apex along the ever increasing bulge she has created. Her eyes close, only for a minute, but a searing burst of anger sweeps through him. "Don't." his voice is low, and so very dark that it almost burns his lips. She looks at him with those infuriatingly innocent eyes and part of him is surprised to find an unquenchable desire to rid her of that pesky innocence.

He warns her, and for a moment she thinks she might have made a fatal mistake. Because the look in his eyes is strong and _dangerous_ – he is _dangerous_. But she doesn't understand what he warns her not to do, so she watches him as he holds her firmly against him. She shivers and rubs against his exposed skin. But he's so cold, it burns her. So she closes her eyes and imagines they are in the middle of a deserted clearing on a warm summer day, instead of a cold, sterile hospital room.

"What did I tell you?" His rough, calloused hand grips her face as he sits up just the slightest bit and bites back the groan that threatens to overtake him as she slides ever-so perfectly over him. "Don't pretend I'm him." He is sure she understands now as her eyes slim and pin him with a desperate kind of anger he's unused to. "Don't close your eyes." He warns, one last time as she acquiesces to his demand and locks with his heated gaze.

His hand on her face is pulling her down and she is almost certain that his cold lips would taste like fresh rain water running over marble. A part of her wanted to close her eyes, but she knew – that look in his eyes was _fixating_. There was no way she could let her emerald eyes slip shut in defiance of those heated orbs that saw through her so completely. So she watched him watch her and inch closer like she was the only thing that existed in that moment of absolute inhibition and fragmented desire.

He could see the internal struggle that wagged in her mind as he pulled her plump, pink lips down to his. She wouldn't disobey him again, and it was exhilarating to know that he had that kind of power. So he holds her lips in place, millimeters from his own and breathes a two husky word command over her supple lips and nearly panted as she rubbed against him as she pulled closer in compliance. Her hands gripped the linen on either side of his broken body and undeserved resolve. He would taste her.

"Kiss me." His words sent a shot of electric fingers under her skin and she was so very close that she knew instinctually that she could _still_ get closer. _Inside._ The twisted little voice in her mind offered, unceremoniously as he slips his tongue in her mouth and she moans. Because she loves him and hates him and falls into him so effortlessly, she fears him and trusts him and his power and resolve and oh but his tongue is so very mesmerizing. She falls into him and attaches and aches and groans in his arms, in his bed, in his hospital room, in his mind.

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"Neji-san, are you feeling okay?" her pink lips form his name and he groans in disgust because it's gotten to the point where he can no longer tell what is fantasy or dream or reality. But that sadistic little corner of his mind reminds him, once again that she would be just as sweet as his imagination supplied. He sighs as she examines the marred skin of his sliced shoulder and she's saying something in the back of his mind.

"You really should be more careful, Neji-san." He grits his teeth and nearly snaps. He wouldn't need to be careful if she'd just get out of his mind. But he remains silent as she turns from him and pauses only for a second at the door. But she tilts her head and his soul twists and bends to greet her blazing stare; because that was the look from his fantasy and dream and reality. He can almost taste her on his lips. "Ja na." There are some words in between her concern and her exit, but it is all muted in the presence of his _desire_ for her. So instead, he lies in the sterile bed and allows his clouded mind to drift back to the world where she is sweet and straddling him. Maybe this is real, or a dream, or a fantasy. He will never know.

All he knows is that she is warm, and soft, and so perfect he could cry, if he could only figure out if it was real. He falls into her and holds her close and tastes her lips and feels her from the inside out in the dead of night, in the most guarded, far reaching parts of his mind. He allows himself to invade her, and conquer her, and breathe her in. He might have been happy then, or might have cried then because he suspected that it wasn't true. So he turns to her and envelopes his frame in the cage of her arms, because this is one cage that his bird's soul doesn't mind living in.

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I hope you liked the fic. It's just a crazy, insomniac induced delusion that I dreamed up.


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